Pretty Little Liars Season 5 Episode 13 – TV Review

Getting rid of a PLL Halloween episode and replacing it with an even less relevant Christmas episode.

Which is what this episode is, if you hadn’t guessed yet.

TL;DR The Liars find a letter that proves Alison knew about Bethany, and indicates she murdered her; Holbrook is looking more shady; literally nothing else of consequence occurs.

I’m not kidding. That’s it.

The plot feels like a rip-off Halloween episode, semi-costume party and all. Spencer’s out on bail, and all the Liars are still reeling from Mona’s murder. They attend a ball thrown by Alison, with the intention of distracting her, so Spencer and Hanna can raid Alison’s house for evidence that Alison killed Bethany (thus exonerating Spencer). The plan goes off pretty well, with Hanna finding a letter that proves Alison knew about Bethany and invited her over on the weekend she was murdered. Meanwhile, Alison has a fucking pathetic and desperate subplot wherein she’s haunted in her dreams by a stupidly-dressed Mona, who taunts her about how she’s going to die and go to hell or something. It’s embarrassing to watch. Meanwhile, Toby, having broken his leg in his car accident last episode, plays out a bland re-enactment of Rear Window all episode. Other minor subplots include: Jenna and Sydney becoming friends with Alison out of fear of her; Paige telling Emily that she’ll be moving away to California soon; Holbrook shaping up as an even dirtier cop than Wilden; and Cece stopping by just to say hi to Alison for no real reason.

Maybe they were hoping some guest stars would be able to distract us, instead?

But for real, what an abominable, disgraceful waste of an episode. Everything that occurs is entirely unnecessary. The only net gain from the episode is the discovery of the letter.

We shouldn’t have had to put up with the rest of it just for that garbage.

Why I hate this episode:

The absolute worst aspect of the episode is the ridiculous Mona stuff. Her outfit and styling looks like it’s from a rejected ANTM challenge. How did anyone involved in this show look at that footage and think “oh, yeah. That looks plausible and spooky. Not at all like something from Passions.” It’s crazy.

Mona also heavily overacts. Jesus, bitch. You’re dead. You can fuck off now.

Jessica haunts Alison in her dreams, too. And she doesn’t even have the benefit of a wacky costume to make her appearance less laborious.

Alison has an overblown, grand entrance into the ball. It’s just sad, really. What happened to this show?

Sydney and Jenna are two of her new minions (the others are those lame-ass twins or whatever). They tell Emily that they’re only being friends with Alison because they’re scared of what she’ll do if they don’t (they also agree with Emily, in that they believe Alison murdered Mona). Oh, shut up. Jenna’s already blind. What else is Alison going to do to her. Also, you’re 17 year-old girls in high school. What the fuck?

Cece risks her freedom just to bring Alison some tacky perfume and offer her support? What the fuck?

Holbrook all but openly antagonises Aria at a public event. What the fuck?

Toby’s Rear Window impression is both flat, and ineffective. He doesn’t do anything substantial as a look-out for Spencer and Hanna.

The hooded figure who skulks through Alison’s house while Spencer and Hanna are there brandishes a massive kitchen knife. But when they catch Hanna, they settle for bumping her on the head and fleeing through a window. Why tease us with the knife, then?

Emily, Aria, Paige, and Lucas try to corner Alison and her mystery companion (Cece) at the ball, but it turns out the twins have dressed as them and put Alisons masks on. The whole thing is just absurd.

I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of dull episodes of PLL over the last few seasons. But I don’t think any of them have as much wasted potential and bizarre, costumed fluff as this one. Have we finally hit the low point?

But it’s not all bad:

At least it can only go up from here, right?

Given that we now know Cece is around, and that I believe the blonde hair on Mona’s killer is different to the blonde hair on Alison’s head, does that mean Cece killed Mona? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Alison makes out with some dude at the ball, and it strongly appears to be Holbrook. The Liars later theorise that Holbrook could have helped Cece flee the country. Being dirty has made him just a little bit cuter, so I’ll allow it.

All the Liars’ dresses at the ball are pretty. Well, except Aria’s. But you expect that.

Ghostly Mona shows Alison a memory from her childhood of Young Alison finding some stashed Christmas presents. It was two identical new dresses. Jessica gets upset and makes Alison pretend she only found one, so that Papa D doesn’t get mad. It’s presumed that the other dress was meant for Bethany. I feel like this will be relevant later.

Oh, and Hanna looks adorable in her elf costume when she’s volunteering at the chuch. It’s a small victory.

Jesus Christ I got here looking for pictures of Pretty Little Liars to do a post about it myself and I can’t stop laughing. Your hatred is hilarious. And yes, you are right about most things. Yet still I keep watching it. And so do you, I guess.